William Stevenson, 89, Dies; Author With Ties to Spiesby William YardleyThe New York TimesDecember 1, 2013

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William Stevenson, a journalist and author who drew on his close ties with intelligence sources to write two best-selling books in the 1970s, “A Man Called Intrepid” and “90 Minutes at Entebbe,” which he dashed off in a room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, died on Nov. 26 in Toronto. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his son, Andrew.

Mr. Stevenson, who was born in London and whose father worked at Bletchley Park, the British headquarters for code breakers during World War II, spent much of his career straddling the worlds of espionage and journalism. Some saw a conflict. He called both pursuits “spycraft.”

“A Man Called Intrepid,” published in 1976, was an admiring portrait of Sir William Stephenson, the masterly Canadian-born intelligence operative who had deep connections to Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II and continued providing information to both Britain and the United States for many years afterward. The author and his subject had similar names and similar interests, and the book grew out of the unusual relationship they developed.

Mr. Stevenson, a pilot who flew for the British during World War II, fashioned himself into a foreign correspondent for The Toronto Star after the war. But he never really stopped serving the British government. While in Canada, he met Mr. Stephenson the spy, who at times suggested world hot spots where Mr. Stevenson the writer might cover a story and also forward him intelligence via telegrams.

“He would then through his own transmission systems send them on to London with his own observations,” the writer recalled this year in a Canadian radio interview.

William Stevenson had close ties with intelligence sources.

By the 1960s, Mr. Stevenson was working for the Near and Far East News Group, a propaganda arm of the British government, and becoming increasingly connected in the world of espionage. He also helped produce documentaries for Canadian television and the BBC, sometimes from inside Communist countries or dictatorships, including China.

Among the places where he held posts or reported were Hong Kong, New Delhi, Beijing, Kenya and Uganda. In the summer of 1976, many years after he had returned to Canada and a few months after “A Man Called Intrepid” had risen to the top of best-seller lists, he received a telegram from an informant from the old days.

“Big Daddy is in for a big surprise” read the message, as he recalled in his 2012 memoir, “Past to Present: A Reporter’s Story of War, Spies, People, and Politics.”

“Big Daddy” was a reference to Idi Amin, the president of Uganda, where more than 100 Israelis were being held hostage at the airport at Entebbe after a militant Palestinian group hijacked a plane in late June. Israeli forces were about to conduct a raid to free the hostages. Given advance notice, Mr. Stevenson flew to Israel, where he was given rare access to Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as well as commandos and some hostages who had been released before the raid.

The raid was conducted on July 4. Mr. Stevenson was back in New York a few days later, holed up in a room at the Algonquin and joined by his son.

“I remember every 10 pages or so they’d have somebody at the hotel room door whisking the pages away,” Andrew Stevenson said. The manuscript was finished in a little more than a week.

Mr. Stevenson and the subject of this book had similar names and similar interests, and the book grew out of the unusual relationship they developed. Credit Ballantine Books

The 216-page “90 Minutes at Entebbe” was published by Bantam on July 26 — one of the first “instant books,” Bantam boasted. It quickly became Mr. Stevenson’s second best seller in a matter of months.

By late that year, Mr. Stevenson had moved to Bermuda.

William Henri Stevenson was born on June 1, 1924, in London. After World War II, he worked briefly for newspapers in England before moving to Canada in 1947.

In addition to his son, his survivors include two daughters, Jackie Stevenson and Sally Simons, from his first marriage, to the former Glenys Rowe; and another daughter, Alexandra, from his marriage to Monika Jensen, who also survives him. His first marriage ended in divorce. A sister, Blanche Thomas, also survives him, as do six grandchildren.

Mr. Stevenson wrote several other books, including a follow-up to his first best seller, “Intrepid’s Last Case,” published in 1983. In 1990, he wrote “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POWs in Vietnam,” with Ms. Jensen, a former producer for “60 Minutes.”

That book, like “A Man Called Intrepid,” had its critics, including officials in the British and United States governments who questioned the accuracy of both books in places.

Asked this spring whether his roles as journalist and informant conflicted, Mr. Stevenson said no.

“I never felt I was betraying anybody,” he told the Canadian radio host Anna Maria Tremonti. “I was not betraying secrets. I wasn’t causing anybody harm, unless it was people I did not like who were Communists.”

Asked whether he could do today what he did decades ago, he said no.

“Times have changed,” he said. “What I did then was a very different world, totally different.”